James Martin Predicts The Future

addaon writes: "Every once and in while, it's nice to have a bold look at the future of computing. A recent article over at Discover Magazine shares James Martin's latest ruminations. While, on one level, this is just another discussion of ubiquitous computing, it's well-presented and insightful." Martin has some big ideas (though ones many people born after 1980 may think simply obvious). This piece also mentions the very interesting experiments in evolutionary computing carried out by Adrian Thompson of the University of Sussex.

Comments

Screw this guy

[epaulson]

A quote:

"Safety will improve. Troublemakers will be identified early, as data-mining software flags behavior in children that leads to crime, sparking remedial programs."

How nice. I think I'll live in my old-fashioned world, where we wait for someone to commit a crime before they're a criminal.

What Martin's Implications Really Mean

[WillSeattle]

Or, for that matter, Bill Gates visions ...

Think about it. James Martin says "we are on the cusp of a discontinuous leap in what computers can do and that the changes coming, properly guided, will lead us all to a land of milk and honey".

But, who will guide them? Look at the images shown in the article, for example:

1. The messy jumble of cash, keys, and credit cards will be distilled into a single smart card that can be carried in a pocket.

Implication: A robber will gain full and total access to every aspect of your life, ruining it in one fell swoop, and police/government forces in many nations will destroy their opponents just as easily. And this will happen, because human's have both good and evil impulses.

2. A TV will choose programs the viewer enjoys. Better yet, commercials that annoy will not be repeated

Implication: Who chooses? Will we control it? Will the TV rat on you? Will you be jailed due to what you watch (they subpeona your book purchases in the US, after all). 1984, anyone?

3. Cars will report good driving so that insurance rates drop

Implication: Cars will report bad driving. Rich people will buy cars that expunge thier bad driving, poor people will have their cars turn them in and go to jail. Those with money and power make the rules, as anyone in France can tell you. And a rich person can hire (and have jailed) a chauffeur.

4. A house will sense the mood of its owner: The coffee machine will kick in when it's needed.

And, when you have a brownout, it will mess up the files and go back to the factory settings. Or it will listen in to your morning gripings and save them to the FBI/SS file kept on you.

Be careful what you ask for - you may get it ...